7 Reasons Why We Use Google Drive
Introduction
It’s 2 am. You’re working on a sales letter that goes live first thing in the morning, and you’re under the gun.
By this point, you’re 4 cups of coffee deep. And you’re just hoping you can keep your eyes open and brain functioning long enough to finish in time.
You tell yourself: “As long as it’s done, I’ll rest tomorrow.”
You’re in the home stretch–answering FAQs and ready to conclude the 36 page letter. “What should the last paragraph be?” you think to yourself.
And then just as you’re about to put those last few sentences to paper, it happens.
You see a flash of light across your screen that jars you awake faster than a bucket of coffee ever could. And then, your screen goes…black. Your worst nightmare.
You feel a pit of despair at the bottom of your stomach because you know that you forgot to save your letter. And even though you’re hoping that your intuition is wrong, you know the truth.
It’s gone forever. And you’re back to Square 1.
It’s every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare. That the critical project you’re laboring over suddenly disappears.
We want to do everything in our power to avoid situations like this.
That’s one of the many reasons our team uses Google Drive–the automatic cloud storage solution and document editing tool trusted by millions around the globe.
In this post, we’ll share the 7 reasons why Drive is our preferred tool to improve organization, teamwork, and productivity.
Reason #1: Collaboration
Perhaps the most important benefit of Google Drive is the power it gives you to collaborate with others. In today’s remote working world, ease of communication is key to efficient operations.
After all, you might have an employee from Australia while you’re based in California. These time zone differences do not lend themselves to good meeting times, which means that you need to communicate efficiently online.
The beauty of Google Drive is that you can easily share documents with just one click of a button. You can even give different editing permissions to different people–all under the same document!
For example, let’s say that you want your co-founder to have full editing privileges and one of your writers to only comment his/her suggestions. No problem!
The professional, smooth comment feature in Drive makes this possible. Go to bed one night and wake up in the morning to easy-to-read comment suggestions from your Australian compadre, ready for you to accept or decline.
Also, as files are written they’re automatically updated and synced so that your team can view the files in real time. Gone are the days when you need to send endless emails and wait days for a reply–just to discuss one sentence! This process annoyingly disrupts your workflow.
With Google Drive, all these edits can be made in real time and discussed within the document itself.
Reason #2: Organization
Communication and organization go hand in hand when running a business. Sure, it’s great that your team has open lines of communication, but if you’re completely disorganized then your communication skills don’t matter all that much.
In short, communication without organization is like peanut butter without jelly. It just doesn’t work.
Another reason why our team prefers Google Drive is that it also makes organization incredibly easy. All your documents are conveniently located in one easy-to-use place.
Documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoints, AND drawing tools can all be found in your Drive, meaning that you don’t have to quit and re-open countless applications just to navigate between a text document and a spreadsheet. Talk about inefficient…
And lastly, while the word “moving” usually conjures up images of a 3-day nightmare getting your furniture from one place to another, moving files couldn’t be easier on Google Drive. You can move files (or entire folders) from one folder to another with a few simple drag-and-drop actions.
Streamlining your organization with Google Drive saves you tons of time, stress, and headaches–and makes your business 10x more efficient in the process.
Reason #3: Upload & Compatibility
A third reason why Google Drive is so useful is because of its upload and compatibility features. Drive can convert 30 different types of files, including .docs, .xls, .txt, PDF, and more.
Plus, Google Drive works on every device or operating system you can imagine.
Let’s say that you use a Mac at home, a PC at work, and an Android in your pocket.
Many people frustrate themselves trying to bounce back and forth between these 3 devices just to edit one document. They worry: “Do I need to save my document to a hard drive so that I can work on it at home? Or do I have to email a different version to myself with each new edit?”
With Google Drive, the answer is a resounding no. Because it allows for such fluid editing, you can just as easily edit your document on your iPhone as you can on your desktop in the office.
Once the Google Drive app is installed on your device, the files are all saved on the Cloud and formatted through Drive. It provides you with up-to-date versions that can be viewed interchangeably on all your devices.
All you have to do is login after your commute back from the office and pick up right where you left off.
You don’t even have to worry about operating systems or performance features on your respective devices because Google Drive accepts them all. (This is especially useful for those of us still using a 2014 Macbook Air with an operating system so old most Apple technicians don’t even recognize it!)
Reason #4: Working Offline
Ever heard of Murphy’s Law? In case you haven’t, it states: “if anything can go wrong, it will.”
I prefer to approach my business this way so I’m not surprised by the daily fires that need to be put out. Let’s follow Murphy’s Law for a second and imagine that the power suddenly goes out while you’re working from home. While this situation throws most people into a state of panic, Google Drive takes away your stress.
How? By allowing you to work offline… Once you’ve done a little preparation.
So while everyone frantically scrambles to the library during the outage, you can calmly get back to work from the comfort of your home.
Other random (but easily imaginable) situations where this offline work feature is helpful:
- When you’re flying from New York to China on Spirit Airlines. I know ya gotta get those cheap miles, but the lack of WiFi on that 14-hour flight costs you precious focus time without Google Drive.
- You’re road-tripping from Texas to the Grand Canyon. Your kids are in the back of the RV with you but you have a deadline to meet before you can enjoy your vacation. Drive’s offline feature makes this a breeze (as long as you invest in some powerful noise-canceling headphones…)
Reason #5: Security & Backing Up
With such easy sharing and editing features, you’d think there’s no way Google Drive is reliably secure. But Drive is encrypted with SSL, which gives you the same security as virtually any other online activity you perform, while giving you complete, simple access control.
At the same time, backing up your work is super easy on the Drive.
Why? Because it integrates Cloud-based computing. This means Google Drive ensures that your work is backed up through Google’s cloud network every time it’s autosaved.
You might be asking: how often is my work autosaved? Right now, it happens once every minute. So while you’re agonizing over your next paragraph opener or taking a quick TikTok break, Google Drive already saved & backed up your work 3 times.
Reason #6: Search
It’s no secret that Google is the most powerful search engine on the planet, and Drive allows you to take full advantage of its capabilities.
The Quick File Search feature of Google Drive means that you can easily find any document you’re looking for by simply typing a keyword.
If you’re anything like me, you have thousands of documents. If I had to sift through all my folders each time I wanted to find one note from a research page I wrote 3 years ago, I’d never get anything done.
Quick search means that there’s no need to waste any more time with manual search. In fact, the search engine is so sophisticated that it can find and label pictures even if you’ve given it an absurd name like 589586.jpeg (we’ve all been there before…)
There’s also some lesser-known features that make searching Drive a lot simpler.
Looking for a file made by a particular person? Type this into the Drive search bar:
owner:
Add their email address after that, and you’ll see a full list of files they’ve made and shared with you. Switch into Last Modified, and you’ll have no problem finding that Sheet you remember seeing 2 weeks ago.
Reason #7: Excellent User Interface
Google as a whole is known for its excellent user interface, and Drive is no different.
Even if it’s your first time using the service, you’ll be able to easily navigate the menus, upload new documents, edit them, and share everything with ease.
Another helpful feature of the user interface is that you can view all your work in either list view or grid view (and, if you can’t choose, you can also toggle between the two).
Our preference is grid view. We find it easier and more workable–primarily because you can see the preview text for each document.
Let’s say you have a ton of documents in your Drive and you have no idea what your 8 files titled “duck face research” (maybe you’re coding a Gen Z app?) are about. You certainly don’t want to click through each file. But with Drive, you can simply change to grid view in order to preview the text/images.
This grid view makes sorting through your entire Drive history much more painless and efficient.
Conclusion
If you’re serious about streamlining your workflow, communication, and operations, then the choice is clear.
Go out there and “Thrive with Drive” (excuse the cringe-worthy phrase, but it has a nice ring to it, no?)